Random notes from the Sandwich Life

I knew I shouldn’t have said it out loud but I did. Sigh. I said, “I don’t think we have a single doctor’s appointment this week.”

I should have known better. I now have an MRI scheduled for Friday afternoon. They had a cancellation so got me in quickly, which is good and all that, but ugh. I guess I’ve only had one MRI, can that be right? Well, one aborted attempt when I realized that I was far more claustrophobic than I realized and then one Xanaxed experience which was better, but just barely. It will be good to get it over with. I suppose I’ll have a follow-up with a surgeon but not feeling too positive about the idea of surgery. We shall see. I’m counting on the physical therapy to help.

Speaking of surgery, just got my bill for my hysterectomy. Thank God for insurance. It cost $36,444 and insurance covered $36,144. Now, just hoping we don’t run into problems with insurance covering all the stuff at Barnes. They SHOULD cover it less the ER charge.

Monday was a hard day for some reason. I don’t know why some are harder than others. I wondered if I should just give in and call it a mental health day but pushed on and got work done. Yesterday we got the results of Ernie’s latest scan which of course we only half understand but don’t sound particularly great. I worked but later we went out for a drink at Huber’s. It was my first outing, other than last week’s doctor appointment, since my falls. I used the walker to go down the alley but decided not to when we got to Huber’s. We were parked right by the back door and our favorite table is the one furthest back. I did ok but I gotta say, it made me nervous. I have a meeting tomorrow morning and I’ll definitely use the walker.

Yesterday I said to Leo, “Now I understand why old people talk so much about health problems…it’s because they take up SO MUCH TIME!” He gave me his signature sympathetic smirk. I love him so.

The other night I had Ernie cook some rice to use later that night for a fried rice kinda thing. We ended up punting and not using it. Last night we did however and I must say, it ended up being delightful (although a squeeze of lime would have made it even better).

I started out by heating up some peanuts and red pepper flakes together. I have a terrible feeling one of the burners on my stove (my favorite burner, sniff, sniff) is not working correctly. I’m just going to ignore that for a while. I added some turmeric and ground cumin, and once I could smell the spices I set it aside. I threw some frozen peas, half a container of spinach and some diced up orange pepper into a pan (the beautiful pan the boys got me). Eventually, I added the rice, tossed it all around and then added the peanuts and spices. We tasted it and went, “eh.” We poked about our cupboards and threw in some sesame oil and fish sauce. It ended up being a bit too salty because I’d already salted everything before I used the fish sauce, but it gave it the oomph it needed. About ten times as we ate, which I believe was somewhat annoying, I said, “but oh, for a squeeze of lime.” I think I really liked the crunch the peanuts gave it. Oh, and this morning the turmeric had stained the peanuts a gorgeous shade of orange! Leftovers made for a good breakfast!